February 27, 2026 – Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff remains unfazed by the notion that artificial intelligence (AI) will bring about the downfall of the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) sector.
During the fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday, Benioff downplayed concerns that AI could upend the SaaS landscape. “If there were ever a so-called ‘SaaS apocalypse,’ it would likely be gobbled up by ‘SaaS cavemen,'” he said. “As more and more businesses adopt SaaS solutions, and with the integration of AI agents, SaaS is only going to get stronger.”
The recent launch of new AI agent tools by Anthropic has sparked fears in the market that AI could replace traditional software, putting pressure on the stock prices of software companies like Salesforce and Asana. This week, a research report further intensified these worries by warning that AI could potentially trigger an economic downturn.
Benioff stated that Salesforce is actively addressing these changes through its AI agents. He informed investors that the demand for the company’s Agentforce platform has been “extremely robust,” with some of the leading AI firms being Salesforce’s customers. “Anthropic relies entirely on Salesforce and Slack to run its business. I think that’s the case for almost all AI companies,” he added.
Investors responded positively to these remarks, with Salesforce’s stock price rising by about 2% in early trading on Thursday.
Benioff emphasized that this is not the first time Salesforce has faced what some call an industry crisis. “This isn’t our first ‘SaaS apocalypse.’ We’ve been through similar situations multiple times before,” he said.
He also recalled, “I remember the so-called ‘SaaS apocalypse’ in 2020. There were voices claiming not only that the software industry was going to collapse but also that the whole world was facing a crisis. Yet, we managed to pull through.”
Meanwhile, Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri also sought to allay similar concerns. He noted that AI companies, including Anthropic and OpenAI, are using Workday’s software. He pointed out that human resources and enterprise resource planning systems involve complex security requirements and strict regulations, making it impossible for them to be easily replaced by AI-generated code. “No amount of atmospheric programming can create a real human resources system or an ERP system,” he said.
